Closing In

My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about trying not to die in a fiery motorcycle crash before fulfilling my four-year-long dream of starting medical school.

So, I have three days of construction work left, and I am just trying not to get hurt at this point. Last week I was sent to help install a huge mirror in a fancy new condo in downtown Omaha. For those of you who have never worked for a glass company for 8 or 9 years, most of the worst stories you hear around the shop table of horrific cuts and blood and guts come from broken mirrors. It's pretty simple: they break sometimes, and when they do, unlike other, safer types of glass, they break into huge, heavy, sharp pieces that you really strive not to be underneath of. So, needless to say, I will be glad when 3:30 comes this Friday, and I can give all my work jeans and boots to the Goodwill.

Things are falling into place now. I have the orientation schedule, a parking permit, one textbook (waiting for financial aid check for the rest), and even a day-by-day schedule for the first semester. Interestingly, we will not even step into the first day of class until August 25, but the first exam is scheduled for Saturday September 6.

Overall, the schedule doesn't look too overwhelming, other than the fact that "Mon. 8/25: Back and Scapular Region" means that on the first day of class, the very first thing that I will do at 8:00 AM will be to cut open a dead human body. I guess if you only looked at the left side of the schedule, where it shows the times we are required to be in lecture and lab, it would look like a real easy semester. But when you look at the right, and realize the amount of information we are supposed to learn in those short two-hour windows, it gets a little scarier. There is also individual lab time to consider. In Christine Montross's Body of Work, the author, a recent med schoool graduate, mentions a key-coded access door to the gross anatomy lab allowing students 24/7 access to their cadaver for study (Brian Fox, upon hearing this news, promptly asked me to take him with me after hours to check things out).

Realistically, though, I am not too worried about the workload. It wears me out, however, thinking about how many new people I have to meet next week. The situation sort of reminds me of how I feel about going to the gym sometimes. I love working out when I'm there, and I never leave without getting a great workout. But when I'm sitting at home, thinking about going, the process of putting together my gym bag, driving out there, hitting the locker room, etc. is too much of a pain.

I don't really mean that though; I am excited to meet my classmates. Although I worry that most of them will be a few years younger than me, and probably none of them will share my financial situation (i.e. trying to buy an island but can't stop accumulating debt). Oh well, the good thing is all I have to worry about is working as hard as I can. And with orientation week ahead, I am starting to feel the hunger that got me to this point.